Why Do Dogs Have Whiskers Under The Chin?

Why Do Dogs Have Whiskers Under The Chin? After owning your dog for some time, you likely have grown accustomed to those whiskers under your dog's chin. If you ever felt tempted though to remove those hairs or any whiskers, drop those grooming scissors now. Those whiskers and hairs found on a dog's face are there for a purpose, and a very important one too.

Why Do Dogs Have Whiskers Under The Chin? After owning your dog for some time, you likely have grown accustomed to those whiskers under your dog's chin. While in humans, hairs growing on the chin are often considered unsightly, dogs have too cute faces to grant removal of them. If you ever felt tempted though to remove those hairs or any whiskers, drop those grooming scissors now. Those whiskers and hairs found on a dog's face are there for a purpose, and a very important one too. For good reasons, Mother Nature has decided to retain them throughout the years.

Dog Whisker Anatomy

When we think of the word "whiskers" we typically think of the hairs growing nearby the dog's muzzle, right on the upper lips. These whiskers are known as mystacial whiskers as they appear where a moustache would be. However dogs have more groups of whiskers such as those growing on the top of the eyes (superciliary), by the cheeks (genal), and under the chin. The whiskers under the chin are known as the inter-ramal tuft, and typically a couple of these hairs sprout from a little spot of dark skin.

Function of Whiskers

Hello World!

Whiskers are thicker, longer hairs that have a hair follicle that's heavily innervated by sensory nerves, meant for spatial sensing. The hairs function almost like an antenna, when something in the environment rubs up against them, they vibrate and stimulate nerves in the hair follicles, explains veterinarian Dr. Mary Fuller. These nerves then transmit information to the brain providing dogs with feedback about their surrounding environment. This ultimately explains why whiskers are medically referred to as "vibrissae" from the Latin word vibrio, meaning "to vibrate."

Ooops, things got tight in here!

The World Under

Dogs have blind spots under their chins, which is why sometimes they cannot see that treat you tossed that's right under his nose. While a dog's mystacial whiskers provide information about what's on the dog's left and right, the hairs on his chin can tell him what's right beneath his head, protecting him from injury. So those chin whiskers help your dog determine how close or far his head is from the food or water bowl, especially when he's in the dark. Additionally, they also turn helpful to dogs who have a passion for digging tunnels or going on sniffing adventures with their noses close to the ground.

Groomers Trimming Whiskers

Some groomers may opt to trim the whiskers around a dog's head. This is strictly a cosmetic procedure. Several dog breeds have the whiskers routinely cut off for the show ring so to attain "a cleaner" outline of the jaw. If your groomer opts to trimming them because there's absolutely no way to trim the hair on the face without cutting the whiskers (think poodles), the good news is that once trimmed, they tend to readily grow back. While this doesn't hurt dogs, in the meanwhile though, your dog may need to adjust the way he senses things in his surroundings, explains veterinarian Roger L. Welton.

Did you know? According to Stanley Coren, out the several areas of the brain meant to register tactile information in the dog, nearly 40 percent is dedicated to the dog's facial area, particularly in the regions of the upper jaw.